“My dad stepped in to greet the ensemble – and then in came The King”: Billy Gibbons shares the story of the “treasured moment” he sat in on a B.B. King session – as a child

A montage image of Billy Gibbons in a blue suit playing a custom Gibson guitar and B.B. King onstage in 1968 with his Gibson ES-335, Lucille.

There’s a legend that has long circulated in guitar circles – one of those reciprocal, lighting of the flame moments – in which Billy Gibbons, vocalist and guitarist of Texas legends ZZ Top, attended a B.B. King session when he was just a child.

However, there’s truth to this particular legend. Indeed, the event left Gibbons indebted to the genre to the point that he went on to make a career of saluting the blues, seasoned-up with a heaped spoonful of boogie-woogie rock ‘n’ roll.